What's the point of youth sports?

A black belt instructor and international competitor who I really admire wrote on her Facebook page,

I feel sorry for those athletes and parents who have nothing in their lives but sports and the desire to win.

I completely agree and I was discussing this exact point yesterday with someone, let’s say their name was Bob, because it wasn’t and the sport was the McCluskey, North Dakota pee-wee rugby, because it wasn’t that either.

Bob was upset because his team wasn’t winning and he fumed,

No one can train with a coach who isn’t an expert. Why can’t you support my position?

I told him with my usual sweetness and diplomacy,

“I’m sorry but I can’t vote for your motion on the grounds that it’s a stupid idea. “

First of all, I have trained under plenty of coaches who were not experts and a couple who were complete morons. It’s up to you to get better. It’s you out there on the field or mat or in the ring.

What’s the point of youth sports?

No one cares who wins the North Dakota pee-wee rugby state championships except for the people who competed in it. Half of them don’t care either and the ones who do will have completely forgotten about it two years later. I won hundreds of local tournaments in my life and I remember almost nothing about any of them.

The value in amateur sports is much more than getting in better shape and learning some skills handling a ball, throwing a punch or applying an arm bar.

One thing you should learn is to persevere in the fact of difficulty. A second is to make accommodations to overcome obstacles, to man-up, woman-up and suck it up when things don't go your way. A third is to develop independence. A fourth is work ethic.

Here is what you do if you are on the McClusky pee-wee team, you get up, go to practice, work as hard as you can and try to get better.

Another thing you hopefully gain is a realistic perspective on your abilities. Unfortunately, the opposite often happens. As I helpfully explained to Bob,

Contrary to your belief, the entire team of the New Zealand All Blacks is not currently engaged in a fist fight over who gets to have the privilege of coaching the McClusky pee-wee rugby club. You have a coach who shows up to practice faithfully, is not falling down drunk and makes your players work out, so just hush.

But I can hear Bob now,

Oh, no, how can you say that! The McClusky Pee-wee Rugby club has potential to be the greatest rugby team that ever walked the face of the earth.

If that is so, when it occurs, I am sure they will get better coaching.  For now, though, all I see is a bunch of whiners who have missed the point of youth sports.

Fact check and disclaimer: There is in fact a place named McClusky, which a woman from there I met last night explained, "is located in the geographic center of North Dakota, which makes it literally the middle of nowhere."  There is in fact a sport called rugby and it is asserted by people who edit wikipedia that the New Zealand All Blacks are the greatest team in the world. I do not know whether McClusky in fact has a peewee rugby team and a resident named Bob, nor do I care.

================= Shameless Plug============

For other amazing coaching and life advice, as well as how to choke and armbar people, buy Winning on the Ground. Jim Pedro, Sr. and I wrote it.

How Do You Know When Your Child is Really Injured?

Ronda suggested to me that the book Jim & I are writing should include more on what we know that is rather unique, that is, about coaching your own children. While she was over today we were discussing one of the most troubling questions to parents, I think, which is when you know that your child is injured as opposed to just tired, sore, bored,scared or wanting to get out of practice for some other reason. As a parent, it always helps to have an experienced coach to ask. But what if you ARE the coach?

Here are the list of steps I go through to determine if my child is really injured. Take these with a grain of salt. As my grandmother used to say, I am not the kind of doctor that does you any good. I'm a statistician with a Ph.D. Your mileage my vary.

1. Tell them to get up & quit whining & go back and work out. If they do, they're fine.
2. If they keep crying, invoke the 5 minute crying rule. Sometimes kids just want to know you care or want attention. Let them sit out for five minutes, get iced, get fussed over by mom or dad, whatever. Then ask, "Are you ready to go back?" If they do, they're fine.
3. Check them out when they don't know you're looking. I can't tell you the number of times that I have seen a kid get knocked down and they're fine. Ten seconds later, they see Mom or Dad looking at them and they let out a howl like they've broken every bone in their body. If they are limping around when they go back on the mat, keep an eye on them. When the coaches and parent are not paying attention to the child, watch out of the corner of your eye and see if he or she is still favoring the injury. Often kids will forget they are supposed to be injured.
4. Play a game at the end of practice, a really fun game. If the kid magically recovers and can run or pull during the game, they're fine. 
5. At night, when your child is asleep, go into the room and gently touch or move the injured part. See if they react. If they react, this is a really bad sign. Go to the doctor. (Ronda wanted to know if I really did this when she was little. Yes, to her and all of her sisters.)
6. Don't mention the injury the next morning and see if your child still complains.
7. Take a day, a few days or a week off of practice. Maybe your child just needs a break. Ask your child each day to rate the pain on a scale of 1= doesn't bother me to 10 = I think I'm gonna die. If the number doesn't go down, A LOT from day one to day five, call the doctor.
8. Anything that doesn't get better after a week or two, call the doctor. Kids heal fast. If something is still bothering your child two weeks after it happened, something is wrong.

Also, even if you are the coach, don't hesitate to call a more experienced coach and ask for advice. I'm lucky that one of my good friends who knows my children well is both a judo coach and physician.

In the end, you know your own child best. It's popular (and a way to prevent lawsuits) to say that you should call the doctor or take your child to the ER any time you are in doubt, but that's not always practical unless you have infinite time and unlimited money.

One of my daughters hated sports and had a new injury every day. A second likes sports a lot but is a bit of a hypochondriac. If I took her every time she said she needed to go, we'd have been in the doctor's office every two weeks. The other two, if they say they're injured, I drive them to the emergency room.

When I hurt my knee as a teenager, before orthoscopes, no one could see anything on an x-ray and the first doctor told my mother

"It's psychological, she's just afraid to compete."

My mother said,

"I know this kid and she's never been afraid to compete in her life." 

She took me to a new doctor who pulled a sample of fluid from my knee and said to my mom,

"It's not in her head, it's in her knee. I can see pieces of cartilage floating around in here, it's that bad."

Your kid is, well, a kid! How does he or she know if this is just a minor injury that will just heal up on its own or something more serious? By the time your child has been competing for a few years, you can usually call it right away, like my mother did, but in the first few years, the steps above may help ease your mind a little and help you and your child make the right calls.

Judo Blogs for Parents and other random thoughts

We interrupt this discussion on elite athletes to bring you this information on children.

I feel the need to pause in talking about training plans for developing elite athletes to discuss the needs of children. This is because, inevitably, when I start describing what I believe an athlete needs to move to the next level someone will show up with their five- or six- or eight-year-old and want me to whip him or her into shape.

Guess what? I don't believe in whipping a child into anything. Tomorrow we have the Nanka judo games for children 13 and younger. They will do as many throws as they can in one minute, be scored on technique for their best ten throws, compete in other all around judo skills and play games ranging from freeze tag to toilet ball. What? You've never played toilet ball? You'd better show up at the training center at 11. (In case you don't know, the address is 123 S. 1st St., La Puente, CA. I know that sounds like an address we made up, like the 555-1234 phone numbers you see in TV shows, but that in fact really is the address.)

If you'd like more information on judo for children, I'd recommend the Judo4parents site. It answers questions from, "How are most judo clubs organized?" to "What's all this bowing about?"

The world according to Laurie has quite a bit on judo, including several posts on children.

If you are interested in games for children (and for adults who don't take themselves too seriously), check out the games page on the USJA Resources site, a service of the USJA Development Committee. You can see movies of these games in practice, thanks to the inimitable James Wall.

While not focused particularly on children, Patrick Parker's blog on judo and aikido is interesting read for those who would like a kinder, gentler and less competitive take on judo than my own.

Speaking of my views, I am trying to figure out where I was going with these notes I found cleaning up my desk the other day. I have reproduced them here faithfully.

• Counter-intuitive judo - e.g., watch a 100+ kg guy to help with a 56 kg women's division


• People of limited intelligence cannot see past their own intelligence. (A quote from Karl Geis, judo and aikido instructor par excellence.)


• Other people want to be seventh-degree black belts. I want to be Judo Empress of the Universe and All the Outer Undiscovered Planets.


• 15+ throws, one gripping strategy and four mat techniques


• Kill them and sell their organs.

I am not sure where I was going with this that I ended up on the last point ...

Speaking of which, those of you who have been spreading the rumor that, during my competitive days, that I often killed my opponents and ate their bleeding hearts in front of the referees, cut it out. It is not true. There were rules against that sort of thing, even back in those days. I believe they gave you a shido.